490 



GNEISS GNOMON. 



appear to be only partially successful. The Laplan- 

 ders drive them off by means of smoke, and anointing 

 their bodies with grease. These insects also feed on 

 the juice of plants. The female deposits her eggs 

 on the surface of the water, in a long mass. In their 

 larva state, these animals are aquatic during the 

 greater part of the summer. All stagnant waters are 

 full of these small worms, hanging with their heads 

 downwards, whilst their hinder parts reach the sur- 

 face of the water. In this state the stigmata, or 

 organs of respiration, are placed in the posterior 

 part of the body ; they are also, in this condition of 

 existence, provided with small fins. After having 

 remained in the larva state for abont twenty days, 

 they are tranformed into chrysalids, in which all the 

 limbs of the perfect insect are distinguishable, through 

 the diaphanous robe with which they are then shroud- 

 ed. After remaining three or four days wrapped up 

 in this manner, they become gnats, and ascend into a 

 new element. No sooner does the chrysalis reach 

 the surface of the water, than the insect with its head 

 bursts the shell, which then serves it for a boat, of 

 which its wings are the sails. If in this critical mo- 

 ment a breeze arises, it proves a dreadful hurricane 

 to these pigmy sailors ; for it oversets the little bark, 

 and the insect, not being yet disengaged from it, suf- 

 fers a fatal shipwreck. If, however, the weather 

 prove calm, the gnat makes a more prosperous voy- 

 age. Having time to dry his wings, before leaving 

 the boat, he is enabled to mount into the air, where, 

 contemptible as he may seem, he soon becomes the 

 inveterate tormentor of the lords of the creation. 

 (Reaumur, Cuvier, &fC.) 



GNEISS ; one of the three most ancient and most 

 abundant rocks of our globe, of which granite and 

 mica-slate are the other two. These are all destitute 

 of organic remains, and constitute the foundation on 

 which rocks of all the other classes are laid. They 

 are composed of quartz, feldspar and mica, and 

 possess a distinctly crystalline structure. They ap- 

 pear to pass by gradation into each other, and might, 

 perhaps, with more propriety be regarded as modes 

 of the same rock, than as different species. Gneiss 

 received its name from the German miners, who 

 applied it to a decomposed stone forming the sides 

 of certain metallic veins ; but Werner fixed the 

 acceptation at present attached to the word, which is 

 that of a schistose or slaty granite, abounding in 

 mica. Granite frequently passes into gneiss by an 

 almost imperceptible gradation : when the quantity 

 of feldspar decreases, and the crystalline grains be- 

 come smaller, if the mica increases in quantity, and 

 is arranged in layers, the rock loses the massive 

 structure, and becomes schistose ; this then is a true 

 gneiss. When the mica becomes very abundant, and 

 the other constituents parts are small in size and 

 quantity, gneiss passes into mica-slate. Hornblende 

 sometimes takes the place of mica in the composition 

 of gneiss. When this is the case, the rock is called 

 hornblende gneiss, or gneissoid hornblende. Gneiss 

 is a rock much less prolific in disseminated minerals 

 than either of the other primary rocks above men- 

 tioned. It occasionally, however, contains garnets 

 interspersed through its strata. But the metallic veins 

 and beds of other minerals which it presents are very 

 remarkable. Thus gold is found in it in Dauphiny, 

 at the foot of Monte Rosa; silver, cobalt and antimony 

 near Allemont ; and lead and silver at Auvergne, 

 Freyberg, and in Bohemia. The famous copper 

 mines at Fahlun, in Sweden, occur in this rock. It 

 contains iron ore in profusion also, as in the mines 

 of Scandinavia, at Dannemora, Utoe and Arendal ; 

 and in the United States, upon the borders of lake 

 Champlain ; at Franconia, in N. Hampshire, and 

 iii the northern parts of N. Jersey. Gneiss embraces 



also extensive deposits of white crystalline limestone 

 anil of serpentine, the beds of which are frequently 

 so thick as to compose mountain m.isscs. With 

 regard to the distribution of gneiss, it may be 

 remarked that it is the principal rock of very exten- 

 sive districts. In forms the declivities of immense 

 mountain chains of granite, and even constitutes 

 entire mountains of itself. It is the predominating 

 rock of Norway and of all the north of Europe, i t 

 abounds in the southern Alps and the Pyrenees, and 

 forms the loftiest chains of the Andes of Quito. In 

 the United States, also, gneiss is a predominating 

 rock, especially in New England and the eastern and 

 southern parts of New York. The direction of its 

 strata in these states is from the north east to the 

 south-west, with a dip to the north-west of from 50 

 to 80. Gneiss is a rock much used in the Unite il 

 States for the purposes of architecture, and is particu- 

 larly esteemed in all our larger cities, as furnishing 

 the best flag-stones. The well known quarries of 

 Haddam (Conn.), and its vicinity, afford employment 

 for several hundreds of men. 



GNOME (Greek); a short, pithy saying, often ex- 

 pressed in figurative language, containing a reflec- 

 tion, a practical observation, or a maxim, common 

 among the oldest Eastern nations. The Proverbs of 

 Solomon, those of Jesus son of Sirach, and the Ser- 

 mon on the Mount, are examples. Every nation 

 preserves its first observations and discoveries, in the 

 moral world, in short, pithy, striking sentences. The 

 Samundian Edda has preserved excellent proverbs of 

 Odin. Among the Greeks, Theognis, Phocylides, 

 and others, are called the Gnomic poets, from their 

 sententious manner of writing. (See Brunck's 

 Gnomicae Poetce Greed.) The Romans had many 

 maxims of this kind from the elder Cato. Those of 

 the Arabians were written in rhyme. The Hebrew 

 are striking on account of their parallelisms. An 

 energetic or enigmatical brevity is always a charac- 

 teristic of the gnome. 



Gnome. Modern mythology has given this name 

 to the spirits which dwell in the interior of the earth, 

 where they watch over hidden treasures. They 

 assume a variety of forms, and are sometimes beau- 

 tiful, and sometimes hateful. The last, however, is 

 their appropriate form ; but their females, gnomides, 

 are originally beautiful. Among them all, Kubezahl, 

 by means of Musaus' popular tales, has obtained the 

 greatest celebrity in Germany. In Germany, Gnomes 

 (spirits of the earth), Sylphs (spirits of the air), and 

 Undines (spirits of water), are all comprehended, with 

 the spirits of the woods, under the old name Kobolde. 

 (q. v.) The native country of these poetical beings 

 is the East, and they belong to the cabalistical phan- 

 tasms. The Talmud informs us that a Gnome, in the 

 form of a worm of the size of a barleycorn, was very 

 useful to Solomon in the building of his temple, by 

 splitting large masses of rock for him, and trans- 

 forming them into smooth slabs without any assist- 

 ance. Solomon had, indeed, employed many arts and 

 much labour to obtain possession of it. These elves 

 were introduced into Europe by the cultivation of 

 the Pythagorean cabalistical philosophy, since the 

 time of Raymund Lully, from the middle of the 

 fifteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, 

 by Pico of Mirandola, Marsilius Ficinus, Paracelsus, 

 Cardanus, and Reuchlin. The Gnomes make a part 

 of Pope's machinery in the Rape of the Lock. (See 

 Dobeneck's German popular Superstitions in the Mid- 

 dle Ages Des Deutschen Mittelalters J~olksglav.be. 

 2 vols., Berlin, 1815.) See also the article Gab- 

 balls. 



GNOMON,in astronomy, is an instrumentorappara- 

 tus for measuring the altitudes, declinations, &c., of 

 the sun and stars. The gnomon is usually a pillar 



